HIPPIES WEARING MUZZLESANIMIST POOLS

"Made up of an ecology of pattering trickles, brightly interjecting chimes, and an evolving fog of delay, it evokes a self-contained, fecund biosphere." – THUMP

A shifting center in a stream of rippling analog tones, the music of Hippies Wearing Muzzles is orchestrated to transfix, echoing sounds heard in nature with modular synthesizers and the powerful element of chance. Evoking the fourth world music of Jon Hassel and the kosmische innovations of Cluster, Animist Pools marks its composer, Lee Evans’ first full-length release for Human Pitch. Accompanied by its glyphic design and animated video, the project’s hypnotic aptitude is heightened to full effect.

Citing his background in painting as a chief influence on his musical approach and thought process, Evans composes with a strong sense of space––each sound an event in a slowly expanding landscape, zooming out to reveal a world of scale in which depth and contrast take precedent over rhythm and melody.

Embracing the generative compositional nature of the modular synthesizer, Evans himself is the final filter through which all sounds pass. The boundary between programmed repetition and human choice is subtle but detectable, highlighting Evans’ careful, nuanced guidance of his auto-compositions. The result is ultimately an improvised structure––a living, breathing, musical creature, acting on a mixture of impulse and memory.

Animist Pools is a functional body of music for everyday human applications, with the implied invitation to tune out and back in at one’s discretion. The neatly organized sonic space of Animist Pools encourages a tidying up of the mind. On a psychoacoustic level it is one, breathing life into the dusty corners of one’s headspace. Animist Pools is an immersive, meditative, and therapeutic experience.